I suspect you haven't read very many laws. If you look in the compendiums of laws, you'll often find footnotes from the editors saying things like, "Congress numbered this section 101(a)(1), but that section already exists. Based on context, we think it belongs here." Lost amidst the rhetoric about "activist judges" is the fact that Congress passes a lot of legislation that requires creative interpretation to be made sense of.
Okay, I'm new to Slashdot and perhaps don't know the ins and outs yet. Still, I'm wounded and hurt. In the earlier thread on criminal penalties, I wrote what I thought was a thoughtful analysis of the other half of the bill (what's discussed in this thread):
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146761&thr eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&tid=17&mode=thread&c id=12295928
Yet there it sits with a measly score of 1, while dozens of chicken-little me-too posts are ranked much higher. What does it take? Blaring subject line? Waaah!
There are two parts of the bill. The second part, which hasn't been discussed here, may actually help reinforce and maybe expand the right of fair use. (In fact, the draconian punishments may just have been a sop to mute objections by the media companies).
Title II is called "Exemption from Infringement for skipping audio or video content in motion pictures." It's a response to a lawsuit filed by several movie studios and directors, who were trying to shut down companies that make available "family-friendly" versions of Hollywood movies. (I wrote about the case in my former life as a legal reporter.)
Some of the family-friendly companies distribute software that tells your computer when to skip past the naughty bits (usually with some kind of menu so that the end-user can specify no-nudity, no-violence, etc. Other companies actually buy the videos or DVDs in bulk, copy them onto blanks in edited form (but only one copy for every original), and then destroy the originals.
An interesting question -- how does this interact with the DRMA? Don't these companies (the second type) have to break the encryption to make their edited copies?
I'd agree, except that exchange makes JWZ look like just as much of a jerk in my opinion (his original message has a couple of rhetorical touches that would probably put lots of people on the defensive).
Do you have any other evidence that this guy is a jerk? How many of us haven't been a jerk at one time or another?
I agree entirely, having been without a TV for several years. But there are downsides, like not being aware of current events that don't get reported in the series press:
Hey, did you hear the latest about Scott Peterson?
Me: Who's Scott Peterson?
Coming from a legal background, I've often wondered why Microsoft isn't being sued over this. Granted, the big companies that still rely on Windows probably wouldn't want to piss off the MS hegemony. But why not a class-action lawsuit on behalf of unix-only companies and network administrators? There seems to be some hostility to lawsuits here on Slashdot (some justified, but not always, in my opinion).
There's one answer I see here that I don't really think explains much -- that Microsoft has too much money to be challenged. But it's precisely Microsoft's pile of cash that would motivate many class-action lawyers to take on such a case and even front the costs. Think of the lawyers who took on the tobacco industry.
The reason he's headed to prison when so many other spammers aren't is that he was stupid enough to be caught and convicted. Most crimes of all types go unprosecuted. If we waited until we caught all the rapists and murderers before punishing any one of them, then we wouldn't be punishing any.
The people who are crying "He's being made an example of" have it exactly right -- that's the way the system works and it's doubtful we could implement a better system. The idea is to catch the criminals we can, impose a sentence with some sting, and let that act as a deterrent to those who might be contemplating something similar.
Good point. Another problem with the parent's logic is that leases can be assets in and of themselves (if they weren't, why did you pay money for them?). That's why there's a market for real estate subleases for instance.
I can't tell from the summary whether the "similar study" done last year was also by the Yankee Group, but if so the fact that Microsoft's security rating doubled in one year would suggest that the survey isn't worth much of anything. What's changed in the last year that would explain such a leap?
We don't have to give up hating Microsoft to cheer them on in this case. This is no different than cheering on "Uncle Joe" Stalin when he was the enemy of our enemy -- Hitler. That's why I think much of the discussion about whether Google will turn into an evil company is beside the point -- it doesn't really matter so long as they're an evil company that counterbalances Microsoft.
I heard that broadcast and had the same reaction. Nina Totenberg made it seem as if copyright infringement were the only thing P2P could be used for.
Perhaps someone here can explain something she said that sounds like FUD. She said something along the lines of, "Music won't be the only thing you'll share if you use Grokster," and described finding people's tax returns on the network. I'm not sure what she was getting at -- that participating in a P2P network would leave your personal files open to the world?
From my point of view, being unemployed and thus at the very bottom of the market, Apples are still significantly more expensive. Last year I bought an $800 Acer laptop ($900, if you figure in the extra memory I got later) that works just fine for the mostly text-based stuff I use a computer for. The lowest priced Apple laptop I could find was $1000 (with the same base memory as the Acer). I'm not going to argue that the extra $200 for the Apple carries no additional value with it, just that the extra value doesn't mean much to me, given what I use a computer for.
Similarly, I recently helped my brother, a starving artist, shop for a desktop computer. Barebones no-software systems that are perfectly competent at most tasks can be had for $350 or less, including the keyboard and mouse. Granted, the cost would have been significantly higher if I hadn't had a copy of WinXP to give him, along with tips on the best freeware. But if you're using Linux, as I do on my laptop, there's not even that cost.
In the end he got a butt-ugly box with 512M RAM and a DVD burner for about $400. Wouldn't a similarly outfitted Mini have been at least $600?
Again, I'm not arguing that the quality is the same and certainly not the aesthetics, just that getting a basic system is still cheaper in the PC world.
Although I haven't actually used it yet, I've been meaning to check out the program redet, which, unlike most regex tools, isn't tied to a particular language, but can mimic the regex flavor of a variety of programs (e.g., emacs and grep).
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I suspect you haven't read very many laws. If you look in the compendiums of laws, you'll often find footnotes from the editors saying things like, "Congress numbered this section 101(a)(1), but that section already exists. Based on context, we think it belongs here." Lost amidst the rhetoric about "activist judges" is the fact that Congress passes a lot of legislation that requires creative interpretation to be made sense of.
Okay, I'm new to Slashdot and perhaps don't know the ins and outs yet. Still, I'm wounded and hurt. In the earlier thread on criminal penalties, I wrote what I thought was a thoughtful analysis of the other half of the bill (what's discussed in this thread): http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146761&thr eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&tid=17&mode=thread&c id=12295928
Yet there it sits with a measly score of 1, while dozens of chicken-little me-too posts are ranked much higher. What does it take? Blaring subject line? Waaah!
There are two parts of the bill. The second part, which hasn't been discussed here, may actually help reinforce and maybe expand the right of fair use. (In fact, the draconian punishments may just have been a sop to mute objections by the media companies). Title II is called "Exemption from Infringement for skipping audio or video content in motion pictures." It's a response to a lawsuit filed by several movie studios and directors, who were trying to shut down companies that make available "family-friendly" versions of Hollywood movies. (I wrote about the case in my former life as a legal reporter.) Some of the family-friendly companies distribute software that tells your computer when to skip past the naughty bits (usually with some kind of menu so that the end-user can specify no-nudity, no-violence, etc. Other companies actually buy the videos or DVDs in bulk, copy them onto blanks in edited form (but only one copy for every original), and then destroy the originals. An interesting question -- how does this interact with the DRMA? Don't these companies (the second type) have to break the encryption to make their edited copies?
I'd agree, except that exchange makes JWZ look like just as much of a jerk in my opinion (his original message has a couple of rhetorical touches that would probably put lots of people on the defensive). Do you have any other evidence that this guy is a jerk? How many of us haven't been a jerk at one time or another?
I agree entirely, having been without a TV for several years. But there are downsides, like not being aware of current events that don't get reported in the series press: Hey, did you hear the latest about Scott Peterson? Me: Who's Scott Peterson?
Coming from a legal background, I've often wondered why Microsoft isn't being sued over this. Granted, the big companies that still rely on Windows probably wouldn't want to piss off the MS hegemony. But why not a class-action lawsuit on behalf of unix-only companies and network administrators? There seems to be some hostility to lawsuits here on Slashdot (some justified, but not always, in my opinion). There's one answer I see here that I don't really think explains much -- that Microsoft has too much money to be challenged. But it's precisely Microsoft's pile of cash that would motivate many class-action lawyers to take on such a case and even front the costs. Think of the lawyers who took on the tobacco industry.
The reason he's headed to prison when so many other spammers aren't is that he was stupid enough to be caught and convicted. Most crimes of all types go unprosecuted. If we waited until we caught all the rapists and murderers before punishing any one of them, then we wouldn't be punishing any. The people who are crying "He's being made an example of" have it exactly right -- that's the way the system works and it's doubtful we could implement a better system. The idea is to catch the criminals we can, impose a sentence with some sting, and let that act as a deterrent to those who might be contemplating something similar.
Good point. Another problem with the parent's logic is that leases can be assets in and of themselves (if they weren't, why did you pay money for them?). That's why there's a market for real estate subleases for instance.
I can't tell from the summary whether the "similar study" done last year was also by the Yankee Group, but if so the fact that Microsoft's security rating doubled in one year would suggest that the survey isn't worth much of anything. What's changed in the last year that would explain such a leap?
We don't have to give up hating Microsoft to cheer them on in this case. This is no different than cheering on "Uncle Joe" Stalin when he was the enemy of our enemy -- Hitler. That's why I think much of the discussion about whether Google will turn into an evil company is beside the point -- it doesn't really matter so long as they're an evil company that counterbalances Microsoft.
I heard that broadcast and had the same reaction. Nina Totenberg made it seem as if copyright infringement were the only thing P2P could be used for. Perhaps someone here can explain something she said that sounds like FUD. She said something along the lines of, "Music won't be the only thing you'll share if you use Grokster," and described finding people's tax returns on the network. I'm not sure what she was getting at -- that participating in a P2P network would leave your personal files open to the world?
From my point of view, being unemployed and thus at the very bottom of the market, Apples are still significantly more expensive. Last year I bought an $800 Acer laptop ($900, if you figure in the extra memory I got later) that works just fine for the mostly text-based stuff I use a computer for. The lowest priced Apple laptop I could find was $1000 (with the same base memory as the Acer). I'm not going to argue that the extra $200 for the Apple carries no additional value with it, just that the extra value doesn't mean much to me, given what I use a computer for. Similarly, I recently helped my brother, a starving artist, shop for a desktop computer. Barebones no-software systems that are perfectly competent at most tasks can be had for $350 or less, including the keyboard and mouse. Granted, the cost would have been significantly higher if I hadn't had a copy of WinXP to give him, along with tips on the best freeware. But if you're using Linux, as I do on my laptop, there's not even that cost. In the end he got a butt-ugly box with 512M RAM and a DVD burner for about $400. Wouldn't a similarly outfitted Mini have been at least $600? Again, I'm not arguing that the quality is the same and certainly not the aesthetics, just that getting a basic system is still cheaper in the PC world.
Is there a reference you would recommend for a beginner?
Although I haven't actually used it yet, I've been meaning to check out the program redet, which, unlike most regex tools, isn't tied to a particular language, but can mimic the regex flavor of a variety of programs (e.g., emacs and grep).
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~wjposer/redet.html